As computers become more powerful, users demand better visual performance from their computers. A black screen with green text will not suffice anymore for most people. Rather, color graphics with animation and video is now the norm on desktop computers. Such impressive graphics displays are often rendered by dedicated graphics cards with high-speed graphics processing units (GPUs) or other powerful processors programmed to crunch the data needed to produce beautiful, fast-changing displays.
As people use their cellular telephones and other mobile devices for more activities, such as web surfing, local search, and watching of videos, those smaller devices need to provide better graphics capability. Yet graphics processing traditionally require space and electrical power—both of which are anathema to mobile, battery-operated devices. One part of graphics processing that can require processing power is communications and coordination between applications seeking to place content on a device's display and a graphics processor or server that is responsible for generating the display.